About us

The 3-Day Hridaya Silent Meditation Retreat is an intensive course designed both for those who want to have a first experience of a meditation retreat and those who don’t have enough time for a 10-day retreat. Read more.

Amenities

Free Parking

Restaurant

Yoga Studio

Menu Types

Vegan

Vegetarian

Dairy Free

Directions

By Air

From Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport: Get on a fast train (TGV) to Lyon Part-Dieu station (2 hours). To reach Domaine de Longeval, see the directions from Lyon Part-Dieu below.

From Lyon Saint-Exupéry Airport: This international airport is located 74 km southwest of Longeval. It offers direct connections to all major European hubs, plus North America and North Africa.

The cheapest option to reach us from this airport is to get the Lyon ExpressTram. It will take you to Lyon Part-Dieu station in 30 minutes. From there, you can catch a train/bus combination to Domaine de Longeval (see below).

You can buy a ticket directly on the tram (€10). They leave every 15 minutes from 6:00 am to 9:00 pm and every 30 minutes from 4:30 am to 12:00 pm.

If you want to take a taxi directly to Domaine de Longeval from Lyon Saint-Exupéry Airport, it will cost €100-150.

About the
Venue and Teachers

Hridaya Yoga France’s home is a lovingly restored castle nestled in the beautiful Beaujolais countryside. It sits on 7 hectares in the heart of Longeval Forest, affording stunning views of the Azergues Valley and access to numerous hiking trails. Our sunlit yoga and meditation halls and simple, comfortable accommodations create an atmosphere of serenity and stillness in which to go inside yourself and experience the depths of yoga. Each month, we offer our renowned Hridaya Silent Meditation Retreats, featuring an artful integration of yoga and meditation that provides both beginners and advanced practitioners a direct perception of the truth of the non-dual vision. Our ongoing Hatha Yoga Retreats present a systematic and authentic approach to the yogic teachings, sharing the wisdom that yoga is much more than just physical postures. Perhaps best of all, when joining us you will get the chance to see how the teachings are integrated off the mat by experiencing day-to-day life in a vibrant community of people dedicated to living with an open heart. We warmly invite you to join us in Longeval, and on the path of the Spiritual Heart.

Antoaneta Maria Gotea was born in July 1972, in Bucharest, Romania. The memories from her early age about her father practicing complicated physical exercises (known in yoga as uddiyana bandha) and unusual breathing (pranayama) synergistically connected with her mother’s teachings about the existence of subtle bodies and reincarnation and this blossomed later in a genuine spiritual aspiration.
Her search for an authentic spiritual path led her at the age of 21 to a yoga course while she was a student at Politechnical University in Bucharest. She studied Raja Yoga, Mahavidya Yoga and Kashmir Shaivism at a yoga school in Romania. In 1997, she started to lead groups of women in practicing Mahavidya Yoga, her favorite branch of yoga.
The first encounter with meditation was in 2000 when she joined her partner, Sahajananda, for a meditation retreat in one of the remote caves of the Romanian countryside. The 3 weeks spent in solitude and silence made her understand for the first time how difficult it is to quiet the mind, how much discipline and perseverance one has to have in order to go deeper in meditation, and what determination is needed for the one who aspires to know the Truth. The confrontation with herself was tough but awakening. After this experience, a deep longing for solitude and meditation awoke in her. The next year she joined her partner again in the cave for a second remote meditation retreat. The deep happiness that she felt when she returned to the same cave where the first glimpses of meditation appeared is very hard to describe. Another significant retreat was a kaya kalpa retreat (dark retreat) for 18 days that she did together with Sahajananda.
She has continued the meditation path by joining Hridaya Silent Meditation Retreats led by Sahajananda in Romania, Thailand, and Mexico. In 2008, she graduated from a 500-hour yoga teacher training course and started teaching in Thailand and Romania.
In 2010 she had the great opportunity to get more in touch with the profoundness of Tibetan Buddhism when she attended the Dalai Lama’s teachings in Bodhgaya, the 10-day Phowa retreat with the great master Ayang Rinpoche and “The Art of Joyful Living” meditation course with Mingyur Rinpoche at Tergar Monastery in Bodhgaya, India. From that moment the Buddhist teachings regarding compassion and bodhicitta have merged with the Hridaya yoga practice based on the non-dual teachings of the great sage of Arunachala, Ramana Maharshi.
In 2011, Sahajananda and Antoaneta gave birth to the first Hridaya Teacher Training Course. She had the great opportunity to be the coordinator of the first HTTC and also to teach an amazing group of students/lovers of meditation.
And the spiritual journey continues… The meditation retreats continue… Meditation is an on-going transformation of the mind. Until the mind turns completely inward and sinks into its source, which is the Spiritual Heart, such effort is necessary.

Arnaud Philibert is a senior yoga and meditation teacher.As a child, he was passionate about history and spirituality. That led him to walk the Camino of Santiago in Spain and to explore ancient and sacred places in both Europe and Asia. After an intense period of sadhana in Tantra Yoga and Vajrayana (Tibetan Buddhism), he met Sahajananda in 2007 and started a series of Hridaya Silent Meditation Retreats with him.He lives with his family close to Longeval.

Thank you!

Why Retreat?

We asked people why they go on retreat, here's what they said:

To give my ego a break from all these construction projects.
Layth

Retreat Guru's Vision

We believe human beings are innately wise, strong and kind. This wisdom, although not always experienced, is always present. Going on retreat is a beautiful way to reconnect to our basic sanity and health. Our aspiration at Retreat Guru is to inspire people to experience authentic retreats and reconnect with their innate wisdom, strength and kindness.